Clare travelled as a "supernumerary" — part of the company but not the crew — with the giant Maersk Lines. He says he thought he was joining a cargo ship to find out about ships and oceans, and a miracle of supply that landlubbers take for granted.

But it was the seafarers who became his real subject, and from whom he felt torn at the end: “I wanted to take someone by the arm and say, listen, there is a ship at sea tonight, and this is who is on board, and this is what their lives are like, and without them none of this world you call normal would exist.”

I wanted to take someone by the arm and say, listen, there is a ship at sea tonight, and this is who is on board, and this is what their lives are like, and without them none of this world you call normal would exist.

For a previous travel book, A Single Swallow, Clare followed migrating birds from South Africa to Britain. He has also written two bestselling memoirs, Running for the Hills, which won the Somerset Maugham Award, and Truant. He is also the author of a novella, The Prince's Pen, and writes regularly for The Telegraph on nature and travel.

It was the seafarers who became Clare's real subject, and from whom he felt torn at the end (Getty)

The prize he collected, previously known as the Dolman Travel Book Award, was rebranded this year and its value doubled. It is now run by the bookseller Stanfords in association with the Authors' Club, and has been incorporated into a new scheme named the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards, after the company's founder. The Rev William Dolman, a member of the club, had been sponsoring a prize himself since 2006.

Bill Bryson, the American-born writer licensed to send up his adopted home of Britain — who disclosed at a literary festival at the weekend that he had recently become a British citizen — was named the winner of a special award for an outstanding contribution to travel writing.

Stanfords had asked members of the public to nominate the living travel writer they felt had contributed most to the genre. Suggestions were incorporated in a long list, from which a panel of booksellers from shops across the country made the final choice.

Bryson's Notes From a Small Island (1995) was identified in a World Book Day Poll in 2003 as the book that best represents England. He is about to publish a follow-up, The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island. The contents of that will not be disclosed until October 5, but he has hinted at the changes he might record 20 years on.

Bill Bryson was awarded an "outstanding contribution"prize (Getty)

In an interview in March he said: "I really, really, hate this age of austerity... When I first came here, this country was much poorer, but much better looked after."

Bryson, 63, who comes from Des Moines, Iowa ("Somebody had to" he said in his book about small-town America, The Lost Continent), arrived in the United Kingdom as a backpacker in 1973 and settled here four years later. Having worked in a psychiatric hospital — where he met his wife-to-be, Cynthia, a nurse — he went into journalism, and had spells on The Times and The Independent before turning to full-time writing.

In addition to travel writing, he has published books on popular science, history, the English language and Shakespeare and had campaigning roles at English Heritage and the Council for the Protection of Rural England.